February 21 - February 23

One of the most entertaining categories at the Academy Awards — and one of the least heralded — is for the Best Animated Short Subject. We are screening the five nominees in along with four “bonus” films that were short-listed for a nomination. So there will be nine films in all totaling 85 minutes.

This year, the nominees make full use of the medium. There are shorts in stop motion, employing papier-mâché, clay, and felt; along with a pivot back to hand-drawn 2D movies on painted backgrounds.

The films are not rated but if they were they would probably be rated PG-13. None of them contain anything that most people would consider objectionable, but several deal with mature subject matter: the death of a parent, China’s one-child policy. You know your kids better than we do. But it’s safe to say that while younger children may be intrigued by the animation, they will probably have questions about some of the films. On the other hand, they might spark thoughtful conversations around the dinner table.

Dcera (Daughter): A young woman recalls a painful moment, when as a child she brought home an injured bird and her father seemed unconcerned. (Dir. by Daria Kashcheeva, 2019, Czech Republic, 15 mins., Not Rated)

Hair Love: A father learns to do his daughter’s hair, a task her mother, a natural hair vlogger, normally does. (Dir. by Matthew A. Cherry, 2019, USA, 7 mins., Not Rated)

Memorable: Painter Louis and his wife Michelle are experiencing strange events. Their world seems to be mutating. Slowly, furniture, objects, and people lose their realism. They are “destructuring,” sometimes disintegrating. (Dir. by Bruno Collet, 2019, France, 12 mins., Not Rated)

Sister: A man remembers his childhood, growing up with an annoying little sister in 1990s China. How would his life have been if things had gone differently? (Dir. by Siqi Song, 2019, China/USA, 8 mins., Not Rated)